


Leap Of Faith

by thelilacfield



Series: there is no world where i am not yours [20]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Indiana Jones Fusion, Alternate Universe - Treasure Hunters, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Getting Back Together, There's Only One Hotel Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:36:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: “We’re sending you a partner. An archivist who has been studying HYDRA for the past few years."“Vision?” Something in her persuaded her to wear those earrings he gifted her this morning, and she’s hard-pressed not to reach up and touch them. Looking at Vision again, the way he’s looking at her, something in her lurches, reaches for him, and she just knows without a doubt that if she goes to Sokovia alone with him something is going to happen between them.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: there is no world where i am not yours [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859725
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	Leap Of Faith

**A/N:** AU-dvent day 10! Another unfinished fic that fits the Treasure Hunters AU from AU-gust, featuring Wanda as Indiana Jones because I could not resist!

I'm on Tumblr and Twitter **@mximoffromanoff** if anybody wants to chat about all things scarletvision! Enjoy, and please let me know with a comment if you do :)

* * *

It is approximately ten minutes after midnight. Wanda is very, very drunk, and currently dancing barefoot to a hip-hop remix of _Auld Lang Syne_ on one of Darcy's kitchen counters. All in all, a typical New Year's.

"You know what _you_ should do this year, Wanda?" Darcy asks, pointing at her. Or somewhere a few inches to her left. Really, it's a miracle any of them are still standing. " _You_ should take that cute guy who works with the college artifacts and _bang him_."

"That's a great idea!" Sam exclaims from his nest on the floor, where he's sitting wrapped in the couch blanket, still drinking from a whiskey bottle. "He could definitely do with a good banging."

"No!" Natasha protests loudly. "You can't bang one of the curators."

"But he's _cute_ ," Wanda whines, reaching for her champagne glass. Currently filled with vodka. "He has those eyes. You know, the puppy eyes?"

"And an ass that won't quit," Darcy says, shaking salt over her own wrist and doing a solo tequila shot. " _And_ you bat your eyelashes at him."

"I am a Barnett College Assistant Professor of Archaeology!" Wanda says loudly. "I don't bat my eyelashes!"

"You do," Natasha says. "And you wear short skirts on the days you're visiting the curators' offices. And he was checking you out at the Christmas party."

"Practically drooling," Sam chimes in. "Make it a New Year's resolution!" He gets unsteadily to his feet, stretching until his back audibly cracks and draining the last of the whiskey. "Okay, repeat after me: I, Wanda Maximoff, am going to make it my 2017 ambition to bang the cute curator."

"I, Wanda Maximoff, am going to make it my 2017 ambition to bang the cute curator."

"And afterwards I will tell my best friend Sam Wilson every sordid detail."

"And afterwards I will- _hey_!"

They may forget about it in the morning, trapped in a haze of hangover until around three o'clock in the afternoon, when they decide to order more pizza than four people should really consume and watch a truly terrible romantic comedy. But when college returns to session, and Wanda is walking to the curators' offices in a short skirt, she pulls another button on her shirt open and reapplies her lipstick in the reflection of a glass case containing the head of a spear from an ancient South American civilisation.

Vision is at his desk when she knocks and slides the door open, giving her a soft smile. "Good morning, Ms. Maximoff," he says, and the way he says it sends a shiver down her spine. "How were your holidays?"

"Not relaxing enough," she says, and sets a folder on his desk. "I need to pull out some of the European artifacts for my freshman class."

"Certainly, Ms. Maximoff," he says, and gives her a long, lingering look as he tugs the folder to his side of the desk, their fingers brushing and sending a spark so strong it's more like an electric shock through her.

Don't ask her how it happens, because looking back she's not sure how they went from opposite sides of the desk to desperately intense making out. But she finds herself backed up against the locked door, skirt pulled up around her hips, biting the back of her own hand to keep from making a sound as Vision's tongue works between her legs, her free hand cupped to the back of his head to keep him in place, his fingers clutching her thighs so tightly she's sure there'll be bruises.

And she meets Natasha for lunch like it's just a normal day. Spends the entire hour desperately resisting the urge to stand up on her seat and tell the entire room that she finally slept with Vision like she's been thinking about for an entire year and his tongue does things that should probably be illegal and that her hand is bleeding slightly from how hard she bit it to keep from crying out when she came.

That is how it starts, but by no means how it ends.

* * *

As of late, Wanda has a new appreciation for the back seat of her car. Normally it's just the place she throws trash and where sometimes her friends sit. But now it's enabling her and Vision to dry hump like horny teenagers while on their lunch breaks. As the back seats of cars were meant to do.

He's panting against her neck, clutching at her, opening the top buttons of her shirt to kiss at her cleavage, and she's bucking against him and moaning his name. Shoving her hands down between them to unbutton his slacks and pulling her skirt up around her hips and lowering her head to kiss him as she rides him harder and harder, coming apart crying out his name and leaving her car with thoroughly steamed-up windows to go and teach a class like she wasn't just screwing another faculty member in her car.

They get creative. Once they've finished having sex on every surface in his office, and she's learned how to tell when he's about to come from the tiniest change in his breathing, they switch to her office. She keeps colour corrector and concealer everywhere now, to hide the hickies he leaves on her neck, though in any other circumstance she'd leave them proudly on display. The world should know how much incredible sex she's having. That Vision, who is blonde and blue-eyed and handsome and _English_ , has had his head between her thighs five days out of the past seven. She's having the best sex she's ever had, and she knows from Vision's broken, gasping pleading when she's on top of him that he is too.

God knows what makes them so compatible. They just _are_. He knows just the slightly smouldering look to give her right before they kiss, how to brush his tongue against hers to make her dig her nails into his shoulders, where to press his lips to her neck and make her breathing turn laboured, the perfect gentle way to slide his hands up her thighs and draw their hips together. In return, she knows that if she kisses the hollow of his throat it can push him straight over the edge, that he likes to stay pressed together and kissing long and slow after they both come, that he seems shy but will be loud when she twists her hips the right way, that his favourite way to have sex is any way where they can look into each other's eyes.

Before long, before she even realises it, they've been fucking for a month. Then two. Then three. Then four, and it's finals season, and she's so worn down to the wire that she breaks down crying when he brings her a cup of tea one early morning just because he came in early and heard her playing music in her office. And he drives her home that night, cooks her dinner, and they make out on her couch for a very long time before he sweeps her into his arms and carries her to the bed, and they have slow, intense sex that sets her aflame, and she curls up to him afterwards and realises she can't keep lying to herself that this is just about banging the cute curator.

So it's just as well that they're separated for the summer. She's in the jungles of South America searching for an ancient artifact made of solid gold, hat pulled low against the bright blazing heat of the sun, and she's not thinking about him. She's _not_. Her tent doesn't feel lonely as she listens to the hum of insects crashing against the canvas and remembers his arm over her waist the night before she left. She slips into her usual behaviour, flirts outrageously with the men and women in her travelling party, and when the beautiful woman who met her from the rickety plane invites her for drinks she says yes.

But she never sleeps with anyone. After all the years of travelling, being known as the explorer with a lover in every country, she goes to her tent alone and reads _Pride and Prejudice_ , belatedly remembering this is Vision's copy that he lent her because he was horrified she hadn't read it. And after she finds the artifact and gets on the plane back home, to trade it to a museum and get her fee, her feet carry her automatically to the Starbucks around the corner from Vision's apartment, and her phone is somehow in her hand and calling his number.

"You're home!" There's too much joy in his voice, the kind of joy that she should pull away from, but instead she's smiling into her tea.

"I'm at your Starbucks," she says, remembering early mornings rushing for breakfast before work, walking like she hadn't just stolen a shirt from Vision's closet and tucked it into last night's skirt. "Wanna hang out tonight?"

"I'd love to," he says, with just enough breathiness to it that she knows it's flirtatious, and bites her lip to try and slow the spread of a helpless smile.

They spend two hours in Starbucks, he insists on paying for refills on her tea and listens attentively to her stories, and while he tells her about the art gallery he went to see and his best friend's recent engagement and how he's teaching himself to knit before the cold returns, she watches him with a warm swell of affection growing in her chest. And when he tangles their hands together walking back to his apartment, she doesn't pull away. She waits until they've been in his apartment for almost an hour before she gives him a glance from beneath her lashes and slides into his lap.

They have sex all over his apartment, spending most of the night tangled around each other, his mouth working between her legs until she's screaming his name, and when they're done and sated and there's a trail of clothes across the rooms he buries his head in the crook of her neck and breathes, "Stay." She turns into his arms, a soft kiss, and is asleep in minutes with his warmth next to her.

She should leave first thing. When she opens her eyes to his ceiling and his breathing next to her, she tells herself she will. But instead she curls closer to him, waits for him to wake up, and they lie in bed kissing lazily until he offers her pancakes. They eat breakfast side by side, and she licks the syrup from her fingers one by one until his eyes darken and he launches himself into a kiss, and they have sex on the counter then in the shower, and her own apartment is too quiet when she eventually makes it back.

The new semester starts filled with whispers about a vacancy for a full-time Professor opening up in her department, and she hopes fervently for it, dressing for the part and patiently making sure each and every one of her students will rate her teaching highly. So it's lucky that it's Natasha, not her head of department, that catches her making out with Vision on her desk in between classes. Not so lucky that she insists on taking her for drinks after work to talk.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Wanda?" she snaps, before Wanda has even had the chance to drink one glass of wine and be even slightly prepared for the lecture she knows is coming. "Sleeping with another faculty member? You could get _fired_! You could end up facing a sexual harassment lawsuit!"

"Vizh wouldn't do that," she says, and Natasha looks horrified.

"He's Vizh now?" she asks, and Wanda takes a sip of her drink rather than answer. "How long has it been going on?"

"Well, I was away all summer," she starts, but shuts up when she sees the piercing look Natasha is giving her. "Since the first week back at work in January."

"Wanda...you deserve to be a Professor," Natasha says, and she's got that familiar firm but kind look in her eyes. "You deserve this promotion. You work harder than anyone else in that department, and you spend your holidays travelling, doing freelance work for museums. That looks fantastic to the higher-ups that decide who gets the job. But you can't have any scandals attached to your name if you want this position. And sleeping with another faculty member would definitely cause a scandal if anyone found out. You're lucky it was me that walked into your office, because no one else would let that slide." She sighs heavily and says, "You have to end it, Wanda."

"I know," she says, and takes a long drink to empty her glass before she promises, "I will."

But the next day Vision is waiting in her office when she breaks for lunch, kissing her and murmuring, "Since we got interrupted yesterday, I thought we should go off-campus." And he takes her for lunch at her favourite bagel place, and they park her car down a quiet side street and she blows him in the back seat, and as he slides his fingers into her and crooks them _just right_ she rakes her nails down his back and silently promises herself she'll end it tomorrow.

And yet they carry on. She doesn't risk sleeping with him on campus anymore, but there isn't a side street nearby her car hasn't seen. And they often meet up in one of their apartments, on nights that feel more like dates than hook-ups. Though, of course, they still end up in bed. The sex is fantastic, he knows every way to make her gasp and moan and cry out, and she gets to curl up against his back afterwards and trace patterns into his skin.

Halloween arrives in a flurry of planning a night out with her friends, just to remind themselves that they're not yet too old to party. She sends photos to Vision while she gets ready, laces herself into her Wonder Woman costume, and finds herself locked in the bathroom at the club they go to whispering through the phone to him, listening to his breathing going rough and the breathy way he groans her name. When she stumbles into a taxi, she goes straight to his apartment, and they have wild sex on the kitchen floor and he cups her face between his hands and whispers, "You're beautiful," right before she comes for the second time, and her world trembles and she has to remind herself that she has to end whatever this is with him.

They spend Thanksgiving together. She doesn't celebrate it, and neither does he, so she turns down Sam's invitation to spend the weekend with his family and instead has Vision come over to her apartment, and they cook themselves a feast of her favourite spicy food and open several bottles of wine and even though she _intends_ to have a serious talk with him about ending what they have she ends up kissing him, licking the traces of wine from the corners of his mouth and riding him into the rug spread across the floor between the couch and the TV. And he stays the night. They have sex again in the morning. And after he leaves she sits alone on her floor and regrets everything because she doesn't want to end it. But she has to.

Christmas creeps up suddenly, finals flying by in a haze of caffeine and sleepless nights, and Natasha takes her aside while they're shopping for the faculty Christmas party and asks, "Are you and Vision still together?"

"No," Wanda lies, and Natasha gives her a suspicious look but doesn't push. She's not lying. She's going to end it. Obviously.

She's in his apartment the night before the faculty party, picking at the spaghetti carbonara he made them for dinner, already on her second glass of wine because she's so nervous, and he's smiling at her across his tiny fold-up table. "You look gorgeous," he says softly, and she tries to smile back and not cry because he's so sweet, and she doesn't want to ruin what they have. "I wanted to talk to you tonight, Wanda."

"Oh good," she says, and her voice is a little higher-pitched than normal. Whether from nerves or from the effort of trying not to burst into tears, she's not sure. "I wanna talk to you too."

"Let me go first," he says, and produces a neatly-wrapped present from an inside pocket of his blazer, and she helplessly starts sobbing into her hands. "Wanda? Oh my goodness, Wanda, what's wrong?!"

"We have to end this," she sobs out. "I don't _want_ to, Vizh, I promise, I care about you _so much_ , but this is my career and it's my best shot at becoming a Professor and sleeping with you risks that and I wish it was different but I...I..."

"I know," he says softly, and gives her such an understanding smile that she lets out a sharp, broken sob and slumps over the table. "Open your present."

There are earrings waiting for her in the tiny box, gold settings with red stones, and he smiles and cups her face between his hands, thumbs gently brushing her tears away. "I can't afford real rubies, but these are the best imitations in my price range," he says, and she giggles wetly. "I thought you could wear them when you teach your classes, Professor Maximoff."

"Vizh...I...I-"

"You don't have to say anything," he says softly, and kisses her. "Let's just finish dinner, have this wine, and say goodbye."

They have sex in his bed, passionate sex with their hands tangled together, and she kisses him with everything she has, trying to show him what she's too afraid to put into words. He clutches her hips hard enough to bruise, and she relishes in it, having reminders of him. She comes three times, with his name familiar on her lips, and they lie tangled together for a long silent moment afterwards, her head buried in his chest while she tries not to cry.

When she returns to work after the holidays, wearing those earrings and trying to prepare for seeing him again, someone else is sitting at Vision's desk, some older man who gives her a polite wave but nothing more. Her new office has a vase of roses waiting at the edge of her desk, a note left on her keyboard.

_Congratulations, Professor Maximoff. I know you're going to do incredible things. And I won't be in your way - I've taken another job at a museum out of town. I'm glad we got one last night. This was the best year of my life because of you._

_Yours, always - V_

She cries for half an hour, head in her hands. Then she cleans herself up, reapplies her eyeliner, and goes to teach her first class as a fully qualified Professor.

Of course, that is by no means the end of their story.

* * *

"...now, there has never been anything more than circumstantial evidence to suggest that the Tesseract ever truly existed," Wanda says, fondly watching one of the students in the front row scribbling in his notebook, constantly flicking his hair out of his eyes. "Whatever you might call it, those who called themselves HYDRA believed in it and its power, but there have been multiple searches for it that have never amounted to anything."

"But doesn't it account for the mysterious disappearance of Johann Schmidt?!" comes the question from her most tenacious student, and she lifts her eyes from her notes to Peter Parker, eyes bright and eager. "They never found a body, I read all about it! He just...vanished."

"It was a war, Mr. Parker, people simply vanished and were presumed dead," she says, and the young man visibly deflates in his chair. "But what has been translated from Schmidt's journals shows us that he certainly believed in the power of whatever he had found. As did his associate," a click, and the picture of the seemingly benign balding man blooms onto the screen, "Arnim Zola."

"Didn't Zola betray Schmidt?" Peter asks, almost before she's taken the breath to form the words.

"Indeed he did, Mr. Parker," Wanda says, and he beams at her. "But there were reasons to believe that, until his death, Zola's loyalties were still with Schmidt's ideals. He was killed in the shootout between himself and agents of SHIELD when it was discovered he was still working to find the Tesseract."

"Do you think the Tesseract exists, Professor Maximoff?" Peter asks, nearly falling off his chair in his eagerness. "Do you think it's still out there? It's just science, right? Professor Banner says that everything is science, because someone a hundred years ago would've called AI magic. Now it just exists."

She pauses for a moment, all of her students staring at her. Then she clears her throat and says, "I think that perhaps there was something this cult worshipped. But I don't think that it was anything from outer space, and I think that Schmidt simply disappeared. I think that, if something _like_ the Tesseract does exist, it should be kept out of our hands."

Class finishes, and her students disperse, and she straightens her notes and tries to clear her thoughts. Not to dwell too long on the thought that anything she teaches might have existed. Just because they found Steve Rogers frozen in ice and still alive a few years ago and the world of archaeology was rocked to its core doesn't mean everything she teaches is true. She's certainly never found evidence of anything crazier than golden idols ancient civilizations once worshipped.

A knock at the door brings her head whipping up, and she smiles slowly when she recognises Maria in the doorway, all in black as usual, her SHIELD lanyard hung carelessly around her neck. "To what do I owe the pleasure this time, Agent Hill?" she asks, letting the slight hint of flirtatiousness creep into her voice. She's always found Maria attractive.

"I need to bring you in," Maria says, sharp and to the point as always. "Director wants to see you. New mission."

"If it's another all expenses paid trip to investigate claims of aliens that don't exist, I'll happily take it," Wanda says, following the agent from the lecture theatre and taking a moment to appreciate the sway of Maria's hips. "Can I go to Europe this time? I've always wanted to see Edinburgh."

A black car sweeps them to the SHIELD offices, and Nick Fury is waiting for them, his coat billowing around him as it always does in respect. Some absurd notion in Wanda wants her to bow to him, but she just smiles and says, "Director Fury. What is it this time?"

"I'm afraid it's HYDRA again, Professor Maximoff," he says, and she tugs at her blazer, readjusting herself and her expectations. "Our agents are hearing reports of cells of their operatives in Sokovia. There is evidence of their activity, energy signatures of their weapons, but we have thus far been unable to find them. We believe that they the Tesseract."

"Fury, I taught my students less than an hour again that the Tesseract never existed-"

"You and I both know that the longer we work the more it seems that all the stories are true," Fury says, and her mouth snaps shut. "We want you out in Sokovia by next week. I've arranged cover for your classes, so no need to worry about that. You concentrate on finding out what's going on out there."

"I suppose I can't complain about an all-expenses paid trip back to my home country," she says, and Fury just nods, his eyes steely. "So I'm just spending my time wandering around town asking the locals questions?"

"We're sending you a partner," Maria says. "An archivist who has been studying HYDRA for the past few years. The museum he works at carries much of the evidence of the existence of the Tesseract, dating back to long before the Second World War. He will be able to recognise the signs of it, perhaps better than you."

"I thought that I was the only archaeologist on your payroll," Wanda pouts, and Maria rolls her eyes. "Can I at least meet him?"

"Certainly," Fury says, and opens the door to welcome in a man that sends Wanda staggering, brings back all the memories of three years ago she tried to push away.

"Vision?" she gasps, and those blue eyes land on her, wide with surprise.

"Wanda," he breathes, and his voice is as soft and as sweet as she remembers, the tiniest smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Hi."

Something in her persuaded her to wear those earrings he gifted her this morning, and she's hard-pressed not to reach up and touch them. Looking at Vision again, the way he's looking at her, something in her lurches, reaches for him, and she just _knows_ without a doubt that if she goes to Sokovia alone with him something is going to happen between them.

"I have a final year student who is incredibly enthusiastic about the study of the Tesseract," she hears herself say, and Fury squints at her. "I think he would jump at the chance to come to Sokovia and get some field work experience."

"What's his name?"

"Peter Parker," she says, and Fury's still face slants ever so slightly towards consideration for a moment. "I could use the help in the field, Director Fury."

Finally, the director says, "I'll allow it. Get his permission. The three of you fly out next week."

She leaves the offices in a rush, avoiding the heaviness of Vision's gaze. Sitting in her car, the memories rushing back of the one she sold after she made it to professor, the backseat where Vision's hand slid beneath her skirt and his lips eagerly found her neck.

She's going to be with him in Sokovia for a week. Of course there's nothing wrong with this situation.

* * *

There are benefits to working with SHIELD. The private jet, the charming pilot, the amount of money she'll pocket when she returns to the US with evidence in her hand. And she's trying to remind herself that she shouldn't sabotage this partnership, that she should make sure she can work with SHIELD for years to come, that it is mostly from the pay SHIELD gives her that she could afford her new apartment and her new car and the life she's crafted for herself.

She won't be distracted by Vision. Even though he's turned up at the airport in a turtleneck and a long coat that fit him perfectly, and she's remember him looking like that at the doorway to her office, remembering the weight of that coat in her hands when she pulled it off him, she's concentrating on her job and not him. She's only looking up when Peter appears, his eyes wide and his young face bright with amazement.

"Thank you for inviting me, Professor Maximoff!" he gushes, and she smiles at him, his surprise when a SHIELD staff member seizes his suitcase and packs it into the hold. "I didn't know what to pack, so I just brought everything!"

"You'll love Sokovia," she says, adjusting her leather jacket as a cold wind peels up the runway.

"You've been there?" her student asks, eyes bright and shiny.

"Professor Maximoff is from Sokovia," Vision says, and she turns to catch him looking at her with that old familiar softness in his eyes.

"That's _cool_!" Peter breathes, and Wanda smiles slightly, tucking her hair behind her ear. She's grateful when someone calls out for them to board the plane, something to distract herself from the longing that keeps clenching her chest.

Her old hat has been brought again for another mission for SHIELD, and she tucks it down over her face when she takes her seat in the jet, closing her eyes. Peter is playing with his phone and Vision is reading, and she hopes that neither of them will notice how she watches what she can see of Vision. He looks no different than he did the night they said goodbye, hair in his eyes and the softness of his mouth. It would be so easy to fall back into his arms, to find home in them again. But they ended the distant dance between them for a reason, and she can't go back on it. It was all the better for her career to end it. Sleeping with her partner on a mission sanctioned by SHIELD would take her right back to square one.

She does manage to sleep for some of the ten hour flight to Sokovia. Her dreams are filled with glimpses of Vision, memories of their fling three years ago that she's tried so desperately to forget. She left the earrings he gave her in her apartment, shut in their box and tucked tightly away. Out of sight and out of mind. The desperate act of someone desperate to push away the memories and the feelings that seeing him again has awoken in her.

Stepping off the plane into Sokovia feels like a homecoming, taking a long breath of the clean mountain air. And she can still feel Vision's eyes on her, even though Peter is happily chattering away, and the walk to their hotel is punctuated only by him asking questions and her answering as best she can. Even being close to Vision again is distraction, the familiar smell of his cologne, the polite smile on his face when the hotel receptionist welcomes them, so reminiscent of the way he'd talk sweetly to the barista when they met up in Starbucks and pretended they weren't on a date.

"Okay, so you are set up in rooms 401 and 403," the receptionist says, and Wanda looks up, startled. "Is there a problem, ma'am?"

"We should have three rooms," she says, looking at the two men behind her. "There's three of us."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, there are only two rooms in your reservation," the receptionist says. "We're all booked up this close to Christmas. I can try to find something else-"

"I don't mind sharing with Mr. Shade, Professor Maximoff!" Peter pipes up, and for a moment it looks like there's a way out of it.

"I think that would be inappropriate, Mr. Parker, you are here as an assistant," Vision says, and maybe she's not mistaking the way he glances at her with something pure and potent in his gaze. "Professor Maximoff and I will share."

"One is a double room and one is a twin, if that helps the decision," the receptionist pipes up.

"You take the double room, Peter," Wanda immediately cuts in, and takes the keycard from the receptionist's hand. "I'm used to sleeping in much rougher conditions on my missions. A bed is a step up from where I went for SHIELD last summer."

"I read about that," Vision says softly, and she looks at him. He's too close to her for her to control the pace of her heartbeat, so much in her space, a slight smile on his face. "You tracked down the bones that could prove the existence of some inhuman species years ago."

"I didn't know you were keeping up with my career," she says, the air between them charged with electricity, and he just smiles.

"Of course I was," he says, and his hand twitches at his side like he wants to reach for her. "I always knew how important your career was to you."

"It wasn't the be all and end all," she says softly, and there's a moment that feels like she should kiss him. Even though she knows that she can't just fall back into him three years later and pretend that nothing changed, that they didn't end it for a reason, she wants him enough to forget it.

"Did you two know each other before you were partnered for this mission?" Peter's voice breaks through the silence, and she clears her throat and stares down hard at the label on her suitcase.

"We used to work together," Vision says lightly. A tiny sentence that doesn't capture everything they shared, the year they spent tangled up in each other, the tears she cried when they had to end it.

The hotel room is typical, far too close quarters for her to want to share with her ex. But she just throws herself onto the right bed, throwing her hat onto the bedpost, and glances over at him. "You can take a shower first," she says, and maybe it was a mistake to say that. She doesn't need to remember what he looks like naked, what his skin looks like glistening with water, and she looks away again. "I, um...I know how gross planes are. Even private jets."

"I read that there are a number of local ghost stories pertaining to an abandoned mansion in the hills," he says, all long and lean propped casually against the doorway. It shouldn't be allowed for him to be so sexy without even trying. "That seems like the place to start looking for a secret cult, doesn't it?"

"We'll start there," she says. "We'll stay around town tomorrow, ask some of the locals for stories. Then maybe the manor this weekend, when we've found our feet here." And he nods and smiles before he walks into the bathroom.

And she lies back on the bed, covers her face with the pillow, and lets out a long, low groan.

* * *

The mansion in the hills looms eerily against the dark trees and the grey skies, and Wanda pauses to tighten the laces of her boots and give a nervous glance to the two men in front of her. Peter seems to have taken a shine to Vision, cheerfully following him around the city, and something about the way Vision isn't just humouring him but actually responding to his questions is making her chest flutter. Much as she might want to blame her skipping heart on the very strong coffee she had to wake herself up for the day, it is definitely because of Vision.

Everything inside the mansion is dust and cold, and she shivers at the wind howling through the empty space. There's something foreboding about the lingering shadows, something worse than she's ever seen before, and when Vision casts her a concerned look she wants to slink against his warmth and not move away. But her student watching is the buffer she truly brought him for, and she says, "What do you know about field work, Peter?"

"Be careful where you step, you might break something irreplaceable," Peter intones, the rules she's taught her students at first lessons back after summer when her name is in headlines and they're clamouring to know more. "Secret passageways are actually mostly made up for movies. You don't need to walk around tapping every third brick in a wall to try and crack a code. You're really looking for something obvious."

"This is the sort of place we've found evidence of the Tesseract before," Vision says, looking around, the dark collar of his coat turned up against the cold. "Abandoned homes that used to be owned by the rich. They had societies who gathered to worship the Tesseract. Long before HYDRA was a name we used."

" _Cool_ ," Peter breathes, and Wanda shakes her head fondly at her student. "You think we really might find something?"

"If we do, I'll make sure your name ends up in the headlines," Vision says, smiling warmly at the younger man, and Peter _beams_.

"Everyone is gonna _flip_ ," he says. "Flash is already jealous that I'm spending Christmas away with our hot professor- oh." He flushes, mouths silently like a fish for a moment, and finally says, "Sorry, Professor Maximoff. I'm not trying to disrespect you."

"I'm sure your professor is aware of how attractive she is, Mr. Parker," Vision says softly, and when Wanda turns to glance at him his eyes on her are so hot they could melt her. Even when she's bundled in a puffer and heavy boots and a beanie against the bite of a Sokovian winter, he still looks at her like that, and it takes her back to the way he looked at her when she wore nothing at all.

Their moment of long, lingering eye contact is broken by Peter yelping and the grind of stone on stone. Her gaze whips away from Vision's to watch her student topple through a new gap in the wall, the light fixture next to him bent down from his weight, and she rushes to hold it down before the door can slide closed behind him. He's sprawled on the ground, covered in dust, and she winces to think of the paperwork if he's broken anything. "Are you alright, Peter?"

"I'm fine," he says, and then looks up with bright eyes. "That was a _secret door_ , Professor! So they do exist!"

"Secret passageways are still the exception, not the rule," she says, and raises her flashlight to her shoulder, flicking it on to shine down the passageway. It's narrow, lined by rough grey stone, and seems to slope down until her light can't reach the dark. "This looks like it goes underground."

"That matches HYDRA," Vision says softly, too close behind her. She's so aware of him, her body attuned to him, remembering how they moved together at the most inconvenient moments. "They don't seem to like the daylight."

"Maybe they're a secret cult of vampires," Wanda says, laced with sarcasm, trying to cover up for how Vision is affecting her. But his laugh comes with him moving closer to her, and she jolts forward. "Let's go down."

"An excellent idea," Vision says softly, and she regrets the choice of words. She's remembering the number of times he sank to his knees in front of her and buried his head between her thighs, and pinching herself beneath the thick layer of her puffer to stop herself getting turned on. Leading the way, she walks into the depths of the manor, the silvery beam of her flashlight bobbing in the darkness, the nervous breaths of her companions the only sound.

The corridor opens into a small room, illuminated by a single bare bulb strung from the ceiling. She switches off her flashlight and looks around, leaning down to touch the belongings left on the floor. A jacket still warm from skin, a knife with the curved blade hazy with fingerprints, and Vision is kneeling down next to her, glancing at the pile of blankets in the corner that's looking more and more like a makeshift bed. "Someone lives here," he says softly.

"Is there a bad real estate market here?" Peter asks, his flashlight beam twisting as he looks around the room. "This is _creepy_. Are you guys creeped out too?"

"I can't say I'm the biggest fan of being in someone's underground bunker in a mansion that might have a cult that worships something from space in it," Wanda says, and Vision chuckles, low in his chest. He's too close, making it hard for her to be analytical, and the sound of something scurrying in the dark makes her squeal, almost toppling into him.

He catches her, his arm briefly going around her when he rights her. "You're alright," he says softly, and their eyes meet, her gaze flickering to his lips. "It was probably just a rat."

"We shouldn't be here," she says, and straightens up, trying not to look too disturbed. "Take some of those things and we can look at them back at the hotel. I don't want to stay here for too long."

"Me neither," Peter says, and practically bolts back up the corridor, flashlight waving behind him. She laughs under her breath, stuffing the knife and the jacket into her pack, and turns to find Vision watching her.

"He's a good kid," he says softly, and she smiles. "I see why you brought him to be your assistant."

"That _is_ why I brought him," she says decisively. Though he can probably see right through her, she can at least pretend. "Come on. Shouldn't leave him alone too long, he is still a student."

Vision helps her to her feet, and they linger in the light of each other's gaze for a moment. His lips are slightly parted, and she remembers him like this, long and lean, looking down at her with bright eyes. "I missed you, you know," he says softly, and she's going to do it. She's going to kiss him in a creepy underground bunker, in an abandoned mansion, and maybe they're going to have sex on that pile of blankets in the corner. She hasn't quite decided.

Then there's another sound from within the walls, much too loud to be a rat, and a man emerges from the wall. His eyes are crazed, the familiar sigil of HYDRA shining red at his chest, and Wanda screams and breaks into a run back up the corridor, Vision just behind her. "Peter!" she screams, hoping he can hear her over the wind, the man growling almost inhumanly behind her. "Get out of there!"

She emerges from the passageway, cobwebs in her hair, and Vision is a moment behind, trying to close the wall before the man behind them can catch up. But they don't know how, and he erupts into the mansion, and Peter screams and ducks behind a rusty suit of armour, his pale face peering out from behind the soldier. Their attacker reaches straight for Wanda, taking a fistful of her hair to drag her back and slam her to the floor, and he hisses something in German, something full of rage and spittle.

The crack of a gunshot fills the air, and the man glances up, his eyes darting and wild, and Vision has a pistol in his hand, aimed at their assailant. "I don't know who you are, or what you want," he says, and his voice is different to the one she knows. Low and dangerous. "But we are not your enemies. We're here to study. Let her go."

" _SHIELD_ ," the man snarls, perhaps the only word he knows in English. And he does let her go, disappearing back into the wall, and the bricks roll closed behind him as if he was never there. The gun clatters to the ground and Vision is over her, taking her hand to help her to her feet, concerned eyes searching her face.

"Are you alright?" he asks, and she's just staring at him, the fear in his gaze. "You hit the ground hard. Did you hit your head? Do you feel like anything is broken?"

"I think I'm okay," she says, and the relief that blossoms in his eyes makes her weak at the knees. "Why do you have a gun?"

"Fury...encouraged arming oneself before we came looking for HYDRA," he says, and bashfully retrieves the gun from the floor, tucking it back into his pack. "And thank God I did."

"Thank you," she says softly, and he just smiles into her eyes.

And, much as she brought Peter to act as a buffer between her and Vision, she is resentful when he bursts between them and gasps, "That was _so cool_! You're like an action hero, Mr. Shade! Like movies!"

"They make us archivists look like we lead such exciting lives," he says ruefully, and Wanda simply cannot stop staring at him.

"We should get back to the hotel," she finally says, casting a glance at the closed wall. "He might have friends."

She leaves her pack in their locked room and joins Vision and Peter for dinner in the dining hall. Most guests of the hotel venture out in Novi Grad for dinner, with every restaurant lit up for Christmas and welcoming patrons with smiling staff, so they are almost alone with their dishes of pasta. Peter is telling Vision about his friends at Barnett College, and normally she would listen. There are always discussions amongst the faculty of their students, fond discussions of favourites and friendships and potential relationships.

But tonight, she's distracted. Vision has changed into a loose blue jumper and plain black slacks, his cheeks flushed from the cold, his hair wet from the shower. He's so handsome, as attractive as the day she first saw him and immediately ducked back into her office to reapply mascara, and she wants to lean into him and let him swallow her whole. Something in her made her want to put on a skirt tonight, the only one she packed for Sokovia, and she's soon leaning her bare leg into his. Even through his slacks, contact is making goosebumps jump on her arms beneath her cardigan, and his next sentence is stilted and fumbled.

"Yes, exactly!" Peter says enthusiastically, and continues to talk, carrying the conversation for the whole table. Which is good, because Wanda curves her hand over Vision's thigh beneath the table, fingertips trailing along the seam of his slacks, and he's sitting up even straighter, colour stealing into the tips of his ears.

Then his hand finds her knee, his fingers warm. He asks Peter another follow-up question to encourage him to keep talking, and Wanda's eyelashes flutter as his hand creeps beneath her skirt, those skilful fingers gliding along her skin and leaving fire in their wake. His hand stops at the apex of her thighs, almost where she wants him, and she has to resist the urge to buck her hips up into his hand.

"I actually think I feel dizzy," she says, and Peter looks startled at the sudden outburst, then concern floods his young face.

"You might have a concussion, Professor Maximoff, after that guy threw you!" he says, and she nods frantically.

"So I actually need Vision to come with me, in case I do have a concussion," she says, and tugs him out of his seat. "Goodnight, Peter. Don't stay up too late."

She yanks Vision behind her up the stairs and into their room, and he's smiling at her, his eyes dancing with mirth. "An inspired idea, bringing your student to be a buffer between us," he says, and his fingers are so gentle when he brushes her hair out of her eyes. "It worked for five whole days. If it was just us, this would've happened on the first night."

"Shut up and kiss me, you _tease_ ," she hisses, and he grins before his mouth covers her for the first time in three years. And she groans at how good it feels, how _right_ , making no moves to make this slow and tender. His grip on her tightens when she runs her tongue along the seam of his lips, his perfect mouth opening to her, and she unbuttons her shirt frantically, his name on her lips when his hands slide up to cover her breasts, thumbs flicking at her nipples through her bra.

"I missed this," he says softly when their kiss breaks, and she pulls that damned sweater off him. He's bare-chested beneath him, as lean and pale as he was three years ago, and she kisses a line across his collarbones that has him gasping before she returns to his mouth. He pulls her off momentarily, and his eyes are warm when he says, "I missed _you_."

"I missed you too," she breathes, and kisses him again. His lips find her neck, she sighs out a moan, and says, "I wish we'd taken the room with the double bed."

He laughs against her neck, and says, "I can work with any flat surface. You know that."

"I wouldn't call the door in the curator's office a flat surface," she teases, and he smiles. He has her up against another door, and his eyes are hot as he sinks to his knees. "Oh _God_ , Vizh, don't do this to me right now."

"Why?" he asks softly, and his fingers are toying with her skirt, his lips swollen from kissing, and he looks deliciously up at her.

"My _student_ is right through the wall," she hisses, and he smirks.

"He'll be downstairs for a while yet," he says. "What college student wouldn't take advantage of a complete lack of authority supervision?"

"I'm being a very irresponsible professor right now," she whispers, and he smiles.

"Oh, this was always irresponsible," he says, and his hands are beneath her skirt, finding the waistband of her underwear, and if it wasn't for the door behind her she'd be toppling over. "We did it anyway."

"I've always wondered if I'm remembering us wrong," she says softly, combing her fingers through his hair. "Maybe I remember you being better at this than you actually are. Maybe I've given you a halo." She finds his eyes, his hands on her hips, her skirt rucked up around her hips, and breathes, "Prove to me I wasn't."

She shouts his name when his lips find her clit, and claps a hand to her mouth to silence herself. He chuckles smugly, sending a shiver right through her, and then gets to work, and she sags back against the door, limp with pleasure. Her nails dig into the wood, scratching into it, the grip of his fingertips biting frantic bruises into her hips, and her voice is shaking when she whispers, "Fingers, Vizh. Use your fingers."

A shriek escapes her when he does as she says, his tongue doing things that should be illegal, his finger pressing insistently into her, and her orgasm crashes into her, her hips rolling against his lips. She's still half-dressed, falling against the door, and he straightens up with smugness written all over his flushed face. "I'd almost forgotten how beautiful you are like this," he breathes, tenderness painted in every syllable, and she leans up to kiss him, tangling herself around him.

He's hard as a rock, digging into her stomach, and she separates from him smirking. "You're lucky we're in a hotel that provides condoms," she says, and he whimpers. "I know you love my mouth, but I can't let tonight pass without you inside me."

" _Shit_ , Wanda, I missed you _so much_ ," he says, desperation woven through his words, and she kisses him again, reaching for the button of his slacks and shoving them down. He lifts her into his arms, her legs tangling around his waist, and lowers them onto the right bed, the one she's been tossing and turning in while trying not to think of the object of her desires in bed six feet away.

"I haven't been with anyone else," she promises when she's straddling him, only separated from him by his boxers, grinding her hips into him and watching his eyelashes flutter. "I've concentrated on my career. I've gone from being the girl with a lover on every continent to the girl everyone says had her heart broken by a fling that didn't work out."

"There's been no one for me either," he says, and groans softly when she slides a hand beneath his waistband. "Wanda, _please_. I've missed you. It's been three years."

"I know," she says, leaning into to kiss his neck, nip at his ear and make him whimper. "I counted every day since we said goodbye. I wanted to fuck your brains out the second I saw you again in those offices."

"Then do it," he breathes, and she grins against his neck. "Please do it."

He hasn't been inside her in three years, but he still feels the same. She still gasps his name and rides him so hard the bedsprings creak beneath them, the headboard swaying into the wall. He clutches at her, kissing her neck and her shoulders and her collarbones, leaving a bruise behind that she hazily hopes can be covered by all the clothes she brought with her. When his head dips down and the wet heat of his mouth finds her nipple, she rasps his name and slides her hand down her stomach to circle her clit, chasing another release with the stretch of him inside her.

When the world whites out to the sound of his name on her lips, he follows not far behind her. And they stay tangled around each other for a moment, panting, until he lifts her head and kisses her. "My friends told me I had to stop caring about you," he says softly. "But I'm glad I didn't. You are... _incredible_ , Wanda.

"I still care about you," she says softly, and it's not enough. They're not the right words to express how she feels about him. There are three little words she should've said to him three years ago, that she should say now. A voice that sounds like Sam is telling her to just do it, to throw caution to the wind while naked in her ex-fling's lap in a hotel room, while he's still inside her and his face is soft with post-sex light. "I'm sorry that...things ended the way they did between us."

"We still found our way back to each other," he says, and kisses her shoulder. "Maybe that's what really means something. The losing and the finding."

They fall asleep tangled around each other in the narrow bed showered and clothed again, his hand splayed across her stomach, his breath on the back of her neck. And she wakes up alone, imagining for a hazy dawn moment him returning from the breakfast bar with coffee and croissants, fucking him while their coffee grows cold and the croissants go stale.

Then she rolls over and finds a card next to her on the bed. HYDRA's red symbol glows like blood on the paper, and her scream brings Peter rushing to her door, his hair wild with sleep and his eyes widening when he sees her. "Are you alright, Professor Maximoff?" he asks frantically. "Where's Mr. Shade?"

"Get dressed," she says, and leaps across the room for her bag, the knife and the gun. "We have to get to the mansion. Now."

* * *

HYDRA is laid out in the Sokovia cell before her. They're deep underground, through a series of dark, dust passageways beneath the abandoned mansion, and she's hidden with Peter at the entrance to the cave they're in. The cult of HYDRA is dressed all in black, their face hiddens by masks, the crimson logo shining on every chest, directly over their hearts. They all face an altar where the Tesseract glows faintly blue, the energy from it pouring upwards to the ceiling, veining the grey stone in blue. And she whimpers when she sees another soldier drag Vision onto that altar, a sceptre swinging from his gloved fist.

"They took Mr. Shade?" Peter gasps, and she nods, too horrified to speak. "Professor Maximoff...maybe we should call someone to help."

"I can't leave him," she whispers, her eyes hot with terrified tears. "He...I...we didn't just work together."

"You were in love, right?" Peter asks, and she whips her head to look at him, blinking. "I noticed. Was it supposed to be a secret?"

"I'm not in the habit of sharing my personal life with my students-"

"Then you're very bad at keeping secrets," he says, so matter-of-fact that she blushes. He looks up at the altar and frowns. "What are they doing with that sceptre?"

She looks up in time for a helpless gasp to tear from her lips when the soldier presses the tip of the sceptre to Vision's chest. The eyes of the nearest soldier turn to her, and he shouts something in German, the muzzle of his gun pointed at her chest. But she pushes his aside, running to Vision, running to the altar, right into the mouth of danger. For the man she loves, there isn't much she wouldn't do.

When she reaches him, she thinks for a moment that everything is fine. Then she sees his eyes, masked with blue, and the soldier murmurs, "Kill her, _soldat._ She has seen too much."

Vision moves towards her like a mannequin, a puppet on strings. His hands close around her neck, and she chokes, "Vizh, _no_. It's me."

"He will not know you," the soldier says, in perfect English, heavily accented and smug as he watches her struggle. "He knows nothing now but the will of HYDRA."

Her lungs are beginning to burn, and she grapples for Vision's fingers, the same hands that were touching her so wonderfully last night. "I know you," she whispers, unable to find the breath to speak any louder. "You know me, Vizh. You won't hurt me."

A yell from below her, and her blurring vision sees Peter punch a soldier, sees him shake his hand after he's done it and look at the man unconscious in front of him in surprise. He doesn't see her, doesn't see Vision, and her throat is collapsing beneath the relentless press of his hands. There is nothing in his eyes, and she reaches weakly up to touch his face, to glide her hand down to his chest. "I love you," she breathes.

And then she shoves. And he topples down from the raised altar, falling to the stone below, and while the soldier is still surprised she seizes the sceptre from him and shoves it directly into the Tesseract.

" _Nein_!" he howls, but the damage is done. The light holding up the ceiling of the cave breaks into shadows, and the room begins to rumble, chunks of ceiling collapsing around her. Some purely intellectual instinct still makes her reach for the Tesseract, shoving it into her pack and wrapping her fingers securely around the sceptre.

She runs down the stairs to the altar, her feet barely touching the stone, and finds Vision sprawled on the ground. Stumbling to her knees next to him, she shakes him, and for one horrifying moment she thinks the fall has killed him.

Then he groans, lifting himself upright, and his eyes are the glorious perfect blue she loves again. And there's joy in the raw sob she lets out, and she throws an arm around him, the sceptre clattering to the ground when he pulls her close, burying his face in her hair. "I'm so sorry," he whispers, his voice trembling. "I don't know what that was, I-"

"It's magic," she says softly, stroking his cheek. "This is magic and myth and nothing we ever studied at college. It's alright, Vizh. I've got you."

"I could've killed you," he breathes. "I could've-"

"You didn't," she says. "That wasn't you. I _know_ you, Vizh. I love you."

"You _do_?"

"I should've raised two fingers to the standards at Barnett and told the dean I'd fallen for you," she says, and his eyes are so bright in the cave's gloom. "We don't work at the same college anymore. And if it's alright with you, I want to be with you. I know I'm three years too late but-"

"It's quite alright with me, Wanda," he says softly, and brushes a kiss to her lips. "I love you too."

"Professor Maximoff!" Peter yells, finally dragging her attention away from Vision. The ceiling is missing great chunks of rock now, the whole mansion shaking. "We need to get out of here!"

She grabs the sceptre in one hand and Vision's hand in the other, and escapes into the morning light with the man she loves as the mansion collapses into history behind them.

* * *

"...and it appears that HYDRA is a lot more sinister than it seems," she concludes, and for once her students groan in disappointment when she ends her presentation. "Archaeologists the world over are investigating similar abandoned mansions for evidence of their cults. We must sift backwards through history and investigate further."

Her class files out, and she smiles when she hears Peter saying, "And I was _there_ , I punched a HYDRA soldier! Broke my pinky, but it was _worth it_!"

When she gets to her office, she opens the door and finds Vision waiting for her. He's wearing his white sweater, the one she loves so much, a turtleneck to thankfully hide the mark she left on him last night, and he's laid out a lunch spread on her desk. "I thought you might want a surprise," he says softly, and his eyes are bright, and she _beams_.

"You are too sweet," she says, and crosses her office to kiss him, sliding him back against the side of her desk and toying with the buckle of his belt.

The hinges of her door squeak again, and she turns to find Natasha staring at them, amazement painted across her face. "I'm sorry, I seem to have opened a door into 2017," she remarks, and Wanda laughs. "I thought you'd learned this lesson."

"He's my boyfriend and we don't even work at the same college anymore, this is all above board," she says sweetly. "Sanctioned by SHIELD, in fact. Are you going to argue with SHIELD?"

"Just hang a sock on your door like everyone else, Maximoff, you're gonna traumatise some poor freshman," Natasha says, and closes the door again.

"Sanctioned by SHIELD?" Vision asks, and Wanda leans back up into him, smiling as her hand creeps down the flat planes of his chest and stomach.

"Why else would they only book two hotel rooms when they knew they had three people going to Sokovia?" she asks, and he grins.

"Maybe I should send Agent Hill flowers," he says, and she laughs, raising her mouth to meet his.


End file.
